


Son of a Preacher Man

by actualkoschei



Category: Before Watchmen (Comics), Watchmen - All Media Types
Genre: Bisexuality, Canon Era, F/M, Infidelity, Internalized Homophobia, M/M, Male-Female Friendship, Masturbation, Minutemen Era, Period-Typical Homophobia
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-02-19
Updated: 2020-02-19
Packaged: 2021-02-28 02:20:57
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,756
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/22796212
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/actualkoschei/pseuds/actualkoschei
Summary: Byron and Sally compete to see who can crack Hollis's good-boy exterior first.
Relationships: Byron Lewis/Hollis Mason, Sally Jupiter/Hollis Mason, Sally Jupiter/Larry Schexnayder
Comments: 2
Kudos: 2





	Son of a Preacher Man

**Author's Note:**

> This is literally just maximum self-indulgence.

The booze burned in the back of Sally’s throat, cutting through the grimy haze of the day she could still feel clinging to her. She curled up, tucking her feet, shoes kicked off long ago, under her thighs, and sighed in contentment. 

“Another?” Byron gave her a wry smile and was already reaching to fill her glass before she had a chance to respond. 

She leaned into his face, almost uncomfortably close, inhaling the smoke from his cigarette just as he exhaled it. From the smell of it, it wasn’t tobacco. She laughed, somewhat giddy. The knife-edge high of coming off an adrenaline spike to finally relax coursed through her. 

“You want some?” He took the cigarette from his mouth and held it to her lips. 

“Always so generous.” Her voice came out breathy, but more husky and raw than the stage parody she could so easily affect. 

“Sharing is caring.” He was still smiling. 

Sally uncoiled her leg, running her toes over his clothed thigh, and he grabbed her knee. “Stop it.” 

“Why?” She sounded petulant, little girl-ish. 

“Your teasing won’t work on me. I’m immune to your charms.” 

“And don’t I know it.” Sally flopped back along the couch. “Such a waste.” 

Byron fell back into the cushions at his own end of the couch. “Like you need more admirers, with Larry and Eddie looking up your skirt every day.”

Sally pulled a face. “Don’t remind me.”

Byron’s smile fell, knowing he’d touched on a sensitive topic, and then flickered back on as another thought occurred to him. “Or you staring at Hollis’s…”

“No!” Sally squealed, her cheeks flushing under what remained of her face powder. “I don’t stare.”

“You do too.”

“You only see because you’re looking.”

Byron looked down into his glass, seeming suddenly enthralled by the way light filtered through the amber liquid inside, and did not answer.

Sally inhaled softly, things clicking just a little further into place. “Oh, honey.”

“Everybody sees it, then?”

  
“No! Not everybody! You’re right, I only see because I watch him too.” Sally rubbed at her eyes, smearing dark eye makeup across her cheekbones. “Pretty, isn’t he?”

“That doesn’t even start to cover it, and you know it.” Byron sat back up again, wrapping his arms around his knees, and a twinge of concern broke through Sally’s alcohol haze at seeing how thin he had become, how loose his shirt now hung.

“I know.” Sally swirled her glass in her hand. The thrill of the alcohol and the smoke was wearing off, leaving a low sort of melancholy in its place. “Brave, and principled… too good to ever even look at me.”

“Least you’re a woman.” Byron spoke into his knees. “You’ve got that going for you.”

“You sure that’s what he likes? Never seen him go after a girl.” She laughed then, a harsh, mocking edge to it. “Except maybe Ursula. Oh, the poor man.”

“Have you ever seen him look at a man, then?”

Sally took another long sip of her drink, and a moment of thought. “Well, there’s only one real way to find out what he likes, isn’t there?”

“What’s that, then? And if you say “ask”, I swear…”

“No, of course not! Much simpler, much safer.”

“Hmm?”

“We see which of us can seduce him first.”

Byron choked on his next mouthful of whiskey, spluttering helplessly. “You… what?! Sally, are you out of your mind?”

“No, it makes perfect sense, just think about it! You’re a beautiful man, and I’m a beautiful woman, and with both of us laid out before him, he’d have to be made of stone not to pick one of us!”

Byron wiped his mouth off on his sleeve, too many drinks down to care about being sloppy. “Fine. You have yourself a competition.”

  
Over many sleepless nights, Hollis had become intimately familiar with the dark shape of his ceiling, lit only by a column of streetlight that intruded through the gap between his threadbare curtains. He had finished his nightly patrol two hours ago, but nonetheless sleep eluded him, as it all too often did. He rolled onto his stomach, hugging his pillow against himself, and tried his hardest not to think of the emptiness of his bed. It wasn’t like he should expect anything else. With his lifestyle, there wasn’t room to look for a romance, a wife. He strictly forbade himself to think of plush satin-red lips, or, even worse, melting dark brown eyes. Hollis screwed his eyes tight shut, and shifted his focus instead onto the faint noise filtering up from the street. The tuneless, too-loud singing of a drunk outside, the high voice of the woman in the apartment down the hall yelling at her husband, yet again. He sighed. His eyes felt filled with ground glass. What he wouldn’t give for a solid night of sleep.

It was hot. Sweat gathered along the dip of his spine. It was the kind of night where the temptation to take off his cloths, to feel the whisper of sheets against skin, hands against flesh became almost too much to ignore… his will was strong, but it was breaking. 

Images of Byron’s face swam behind his eyes. He shouldn’t have watched, earlier that night, when Mothman was stripping the suit off at the end of the night’s patrol, but he had. Guiltily, from under his eyelids, as straps were unbuckled and pieces of leather peeled away to reveal long slender limbs and smooth-looking skin. Byron had a sprinkling of freckles on his shoulders, just like across his face, Hollis had found himself noticing. He wondered where else they might be.

Against his will, without his say-so, Hollis found that he was rolling his hips, rutting into the mattress. He was hard now. 

He sighed, and ran a hand down along his belly, into his boxers, all he was sleeping in on such a hot night, then took himself in hand. The rough, hot skin of his calloused palm felt good against his swollen flesh. Another sigh escaped his lips, this one breathy and soft. His thoughts melted away into a rich, golden warmth, and he lost himself to the pleasure of his own touch. 

Yet it wasn’t enough. Night after night, never quite enough. He flipped onto his back, and groaned, as much in frustration as in pleasure. Helpless, he let his mind wander again. Not to Byron this time. His mind, now, was filled with the image of the swell of Sally’s breasts above the neckline of her costume. The slight flush that came to her cheeks from exertion or happiness, and how it ran right down her chest. A natural redhead, she was, he knew, with skin to match. It was a pleasing thought, and one that came with just slightly less an undercurrent of guilt than thinking of Byron’s naked chest. Sure, she belonged to Larry. But fantasising about another man’s woman, maybe it wasn’t what a good friend would do, but it was normal. Any man would have fantasies about a woman who looked like Sally, taken or not. It wasn’t queer.

The word felt sour in his head, and made him stop in his tracks as it shot through his mind. No. That wasn’t him. He wasn’t… that. 

He pulled his hand away from his own flesh in frustration, sighed harshly. No use to it, no good, not any of it. The guilt would ruin him, eat him from the inside out any time he tried for any relief. If he didn’t feel the need for sleep, he would go out looking for another fight. He was spoiling for it, but the night was old, dying into a dismal pale yellow dawn, already promising a sticky, burning day. 

Hollis rolled onto his back, threw an arm over his eyes, and slipped into an uneasy sleep.

——

The next day was just as hot as promised, and the heat clung on into the next evening. Sally was sweating under her costume, thin nylon fabric sticking to her skin like it was glued there. Her back was wet, her makeup running, her hair fallen flat. And, what was worse, she had ended up in a real fight. Most criminals still held onto enough ethics not to go after the Silk Spectre. Her ladylike appearance afforded her that much, for all she often longed for the practicality of a costume like Ursula’s. But these men, cheap Mafia thugs at that, had not even cared. The bruises on her arms stung, the pain still sharp, the flesh still red, though it would fade purple and aching over the night, she knew. And Larry would fuss, and she would cry, alone in the bathroom, in the earliest hours of the morning.

“That looked like it hurt.”

Sally wheeled around, a sharp retort on her lips, ready to hide her surprise. She hadn’t realised Hollis was so close behind her. “You think?”

“Sure do.” Hollis’s domino mask was in his hand, his curly hair plastered to his forehead, the greasepaint he smeared under his eyes wandering down his cheekbones in dirty-looking smears. He was clearly sweating just as much as her, and that made her snort under her breath. “Let me take a look?” His hand was already on her injured arm, soft and warm. A shiver that ran entirely contrary to the weather went through her, electric-sharp. 

“Sure, sugar, have at it.” Sally put on a coquettish tone, despite the tremble reaching her voice.

Hollis pushed one of her black opera gloves down her arm, with clinical carefulness, revealing the red marks mottling her rose-pale flesh. He hissed between his teeth in sympathy. “He grab you?”

“Yeah. Only held on for a little moment, though.” 

“You’ll be keen, though.” He smiled up at her. “Just some bruises, I promise.”

She batted her eyes, and pretended not to be relieved. Not that he was any expert, but it soothed her to hear it. “Kiss it better?”

Hollis leaned towards her for a moment, then startled back like the impact of her words had just hit him. “Wouldn’t you be better off asking Larry for that?” 

Sally sighed in frustration, and stuck out her bottom lip in a pout. “Oh, you’re no fun! Spoilsport.”

Hollis considered for a moment, rocking back and forth on his heels. “Well, if you insist…” He glanced around for a moment to see that no-one was watching them, then bent his head to press his warm lips against her marked flesh.

**Author's Note:**

> "Keen" in this era meant "good", rather than its more modern sense of "eager".


End file.
